Timothée Chalamet Was Told ‘You Don’t Have the Right Body’ for Big Movies Like ‘Maze Runner’ and ‘Divergent’; Agent Advised Him to ‘Put on Weight’

Timothée Chalamet said he was advised to gain weight when he was coming up as a young actor auditioning for big movies.

“If I auditioned for ‘The Maze Runner’ or ‘Divergent,’ things of that variety that were popping when I was coming up, the feedback was always, ‘Oh, you don’t have the right body,'” Chalamet said in an interview with Apple Music’s Zane Lowe. “I had an agent that called me and said, ‘You got to put on weight,’ basically — not aggressively, but you know.”

Chalamet related his experience of having to find his own route in Hollywood to that of Bob Dylan during his early years in Minnesota. Chalamet is playing Dylan in the upcoming music biopic “A Complete Unknown.”

“I found my way into these very personalized movies,” Chalamet said. “For [Dylan], it was folk music. He couldn’t keep a rock and roll band because they would all get hired by other kids that had more money, literally, in Minnesota.”

Instead of trying to change his body type to land roles in blockbuster fare, Chalamet said he found a “very personal style” of films, such as  “Call Me by Your Name,” “Beautiful Boy,” “Lady Bird,” “Little Women,” “Miss Stevens” and “Hot Summer Nights.”

“Those were smaller budget, but very — I don’t know how else to put it — personable movies that started in this theater space. This is where I found my rhythm, my confidence, my flow, whatever you want to call it,” Chalamet added.

Chalamet would, of course, go on to book the lead role in blockbuster hits like “Wonka” and the “Dune” franchise. In 2023, with “Wonka” and “Dune: Part Two,” Chalamet starred in two films that each grossed more than $200 million domestically within eight months, beating a box office record set more than 45 years ago by John Travolta, with “Saturday Night Fever” and “Grease.”